District Five
Flora was sitting there, waiting for something to happen.
Obviously, something had just happened a few moments ago, and it had been very shocking. If she didn´t accomplish what she was told to do, the goal of this Games, her family would be devastated and she would be dead.
Dead.
That was something she couldn´t get out of her head. How she could, when she could end up getting her throat slit, her neck snapped or her body full of stabs and blood, blood pouring from the future holes in her body to the grounding, just for the fun and applause of some Capitolites?
Scumbags, how dare they do that to her and to her family. They had done nothing wrong to deserve this. During the Second Rebellion they had done nothing, they stayed neutral, they hadn´t rebelled, they hadn´t supported all the acts and war that had been happening around them at the time. Mostly because they didn´t want to lose another family member after Fiodora´s death.
Oh, Mom, Flora thinks, how would I have liked to spend at least one last moment with you, to say my dear goodbyes.
She remembered that cold night of December when she arrived home, and everything was quiet. Usually at that time, when Savanna was younger, everything was a chaos in the house they lived in, the very, very small small house they called home. Everything seemed the usual when she arrived after a long day of work at the factory, except for one little thing.
The smell of death and the cries of a daughter and a father for the person they loved the most. So, she ran and ran to her mother´s room, where her body rested in solemn peace, where she would be resting, or at least her soul, for the rest of her life.
It´s my fault I am here, she thought, the people voted me on this because I am not good enough of a sibling, of a keeper, of a daughter. She thought she wasn´t good enough to be any of that. Sure, she had the confidence to pretend she believed so, but in the end, she kept going back to that moment, the moment where everything good in her life ended and she had to become a mother to her father and to her sister. She was no longer a teenager, a child. No, she was a woman, a mama-bear ready to strike when she had to protect the people she cared about. No one would hurt her family anymore, not like she hurt it.
Her mother´s last words were Where´s Flora? Flora, Flora... and she wasn´t there to see them, to hear those words come out her mouth, and she could see it in her father´s eye. The anger that was produced in him to see her every day, the epitome of her wife come true and be turned into reality. She doesn´t want to see him or Savanna suffering anymore because of it. Some part of her wanted to die in a some, twisted way, so she could just relieve the pain.
But, most of all, she wanted to fight. She wanted to live. She wanted to survive to see spring and summer at least ten more times, she wanted to be able to be a doctor, and save people because no one could save her mom. She wanted to be a good sister, a good daughter, and a good keeper. She wanted to be able to control everything that happened to her or that surrounded her, but she knew deep down she wouldn´t be able to do so.
Because most of the time when she thought that she could, she knew the answer. And when she didn't know it, she collapsed. She panicked and cried and shouted and screamed until she was out of breath, because she saw no other way out. Why did the Hunger Games have to exist? Why did people have to die? Why did her mother had to die?
It terrified her not knowing the answer. It was like entering a brave new world of not having a clue of what you were doing. But, instead of finding new land, she tripped over her boat and died in the sea on the way there.
She was lost, lost like a bird with a broken wing. She could walk and all of that, but that wasn´t going to lead her anywhere. She was going to stay there, with her aileron shattered and hopes destroyed?
Nope, she was going to go overboard and fight. For dad, for Savanna and for herself. They were her whole, her Saint Trinity. She was determined to come back and win this Games, do whatever it would take to survive and not die at all.
You know why? Because she was a fighter, and smart and-
"It´s going to be so much fun killing you..." she heard from behind. Was it her mind telling her that? Was she going crazy?
The answer, as she could notice when she turned around, was no. It was just her weird district partner, Zack. She knew something was wrong with him from the start, but she didn´t think he would be like this. From what she could remember from the medical books she could get from the apothecary, he definitely seemed like a cold case of "nutjob", as she would like to say "psycho" in a lighter way, which was basically impossible to do at any point of life, but it was better that someone was being a nutjob in front of their faces than being a psycho, mostly because of two points:
1) Most of the time psycho went along with "total".
2) If you told someone they were going psycho, they would go even more psychotic. Nutjob, not so much.
But the question still remained. What kind of person was Flora? Was she a loser, who let others walk over her with all her chat and charisma? Or, was she a leader, who could lead herself to victory?
"Go fuck yourself, asshole"
May we never know.
Taxtrin put the reaping recaps quickly.
First was District One, with its two flashing volunteers. There were broken knees and legs from the female part of it, while the male just went flashing down towards the stage with a look of confidence in his eyes. There was something about the girl that told him, and Zack and Flora, that she would be one girl hard to deal with during the Games. Zack couldn´t wait to get her hand on her and the end her life in the most painful way possible, like he did back home when he needed to steal a place to live and escape the authorities.
He really liked the nickname they gave him back home: "The Enobaria Killer", just because one of his kills had a bite mark on her neck. One! And it was just because the girl wouldn´t stop squirming and moving around like someone in catatonic state. For God´s sake, he wasn´t brutal like that. No, he liked to think of himself as more elegant and sophisticated ender of lives. He was the Leonardo Da Vinci´s version of a serial killer. Well, the poor version of a serial killer, since he didn´t have any money at all. Because indeed, he wasn´t ashamed of killings. There was a time when he used to be afraid of himself, of what he could do or what he got from all of it. That he banged his head to the ground and cried, he cried for his mother, cursed his father, who was the worst father anyone could have, and wanted to be someone else, to have a better a life. Where he wanted to be someone else, anybody else, or to have someone jump in front of him and then say something comforting, like everything would be alright in his life and he didn´t have to worry about anything at all.
But those times had passed, and he was a new man now. A stronger, firmer and decisive man who had no time to waste. He was a murderer, yes, but a proud one. He didn´t have any agenda but to kill in the most satisfying way possible. For him, obviously, because he wouldn´t give anyone the pleasure of a sweet, painless death. Not unlike what his dad did to his mom.
When he faced the TV again, he noticed that they were going through District Three. The girl was already walking towards the stage, but she was... excited? She had a full smile on her face and looked really happy to have been chosen.
"Hey, Zack, maybe she is exactly like you" And that made Zack angry, because he didn't like being compared to other people because no one really knew him or his past. So how could they talk about him being similar to anyone else but himself?
He wanted to shut her up. To destroy her body, eat her intestines and kill her completely. Make her suffer what he had suffered the whole of his life, the never-ending nightmare it had been until now.
Then, he heard screams. They were coming from the TV, and the Three male was screaming his lungs out with so much breath that he didn´t know what to do next with all of it. He was screaming that it wasn´t fair, that he was the mayor´s son, that it shouldn´t have happened, it couldn´t have been happening, that it wasn´t fair at all. It reminded him of his murders, and the pleas of the men and women that were his victims who would never be able to breathe again, in this world at least.
He never targeted the mayor´s daughters or sons, but it would have been fun. The danger of being discovered was too much, but also the thrill and fun came along with it. It would have been so endearing to do that, to have been able to have so much do to and have fun with it, and have their house for himself for a while, clean in blood and full of monstrosities and organs all over the place. Sure, he could step on one them, fall over his head and die for a stupid reason. But it would have fun to do it before going into this.
He would have just to do it when he returned.
Next District Four. Both were in some way at a physical disadvantage in the Games. The kid had no arms (he had never seen that before, and he couldn't imagine anyone chopping his arms in any way possible. No one was as ruthless as him). Meanwhile, the girl was a dwarf, a really small girl but older than him. Maybe her brain would help her, but no one would be able to save her when he is come down onto her after a hunt for his prey. For her blood, for the thrill of kill.
And then it was them. He and Flora, being chosen by their own people. He couldn´t still place why people would choose Flora over anyone else in District Five, but he couldn´t be sure of her in any way though. He tried to place her, to figure her out, her weaknesses and her strengths and how to use them against her in the hunt the Games are, the hunt for survival and for the will to live.
And there was him, smiling, but not in way that innocent girl from District Three was, or how the boy from One was. No, he had a shining smile on his face for a very different reason.
Together with that face, the face the District Six Female showed when reaped. It reminded him of a very eventful night of December when he was a child, where blood ran still.
He was in it for the carnage and the suffering of others.
Taxtrin got a call later that night. It was raining and the sound of the pouring of water coming down onto the train made the room a lot more noisy, along with the TV set at high volume. Flora was there, writing notes on Capitolite shows about the Games, something that Taxtrin had told her to do, while Zack was...he didn´t know where he was but it was for the best.
He picked up the phone, knowing who would it be on the other side, and making sure Flora wouldn´t hear a thing.
"Are you sure that what you are telling me is real and you are not hallucinating because of the drugs you probably had beforehand last night?" he said quietly.
He got an answer coming from a female voice, a very worried female voice that was arguing with a soft male one.
"Well, this is it" he said with a stern voice.
"What is it?" Leana asked him.
"This is the year we rebel, the Capitol´s power ends"
He couldn't be sure of it, but they might as well try.
